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But he didn’t move his hands. He didn’t think he could. She kissed him and talked at the same time. He could hear little bits of words, here and there, his name, a phrase, a little moan. He tried nipping her lip and she pushed against him…she liked it.

Suddenly she put her lips around his tongue and sucked and his blood flared in his body. From some distance he heard the groan in his throat, and ignored it. He was intoxicated by the plump sweetness under his hands. His head was swimming and his blood was on fire. He could take her home now. He could take her to the bedchamber and throw her on the bed. She was his wife, his wife, his—

The word beat sanity into him He forcibly uncurled his fingers and let her dress fall free. She murmured something and pulled him even closer. He waited for one heartbeat and then raised his head.

She looked up at him, her eyes hazy with desire.

“I think you’re right,” he said. “I waited too long.”

She blinked at him. “To bed a woman,” he clarified.

Her arms fell to her sides. A raindrop ran down her cheek. “Why do you say that?”

He answered her honestly. “I don’t feel sane when I’m kissing you.” She liked that. The bleak look went away and her dimple appeared, like a gift. He wanted to kiss it, but stopped himself.

“Perhaps that just makes you one of the family?” she suggested.

He was caught watching her lips and didn’t understand.

“When I was singing all over this house and half the night, I was cracked,” she said, a smile teasing her lips. “When your father was refusing to pay bills, he was cracked.”

“My mother?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“Grief,” Isidore said. “Grief. She’s not cracked, but she honored his memory as best she could.”

“Ah.” There was something important there, but he couldn’t think about it now, so he took her arm and turned back to the house. Raindrops were caught on her long eyelashes. He could see them shining like shattered diamonds. “What did you sing?” he asked, rather desperately. Of course he couldn’t stop here in the path and lick her eyelashes. He was losing his mind.

“Whatever came to me,” Isidore said cheerfully. “I wasn’t very musical, you understand. I wouldn’t want you to think that I added to the general charm of the house.”

“Did it already smell?” he asked, aghast.

“Oh, no!” Isidore said. “Not at all. Didn’t Honeydew say that the water closets were put in five years ago? This was eleven years ago. I remember that your mother was particularly vexed when I would sing a ballad about a forlorn lady who jumped from a cliff because she found herself with child. I learned it from my nanny at some point, but your mother considered it quite indelicate.”

“I can imagine,” Simeon said, feeling slightly cheered.

“Your mother did not feel that I was very ladylike. And I’m not, Simeon. I still sing in the wrong places and at the wrong times. Even if you don’t swear, I do. I take after my mother, and she was a passionate Italian woman.”

“I know.” Simeon knew he should probably take this moment to point out that she wouldn’t want to be with a dried-up old stick like himself, that she would be happier with someone more passionate. But instead he said, “I’m so sorry about your parents, Isidore.” And he put his arm around her again.

She didn’t say anything, and they walked home through the rain. By the time they arrived at the cottage it had turned into a proper English downpour, the kind that slants sideways.

Honeydew met them at the door to the Dower House and said, “The silver has been removed, as have all small movables, the smaller pictures in the West Gallery, and the Sèvres china.”

“Where have you put them?” Simeon asked, watching Isidore walk away from him. Her skirts were wet and clung to her legs in the back. Now that he knew what she felt like under his hands he would never be the same again.

“The west barn,” Honeydew was saying. “The footmen will sleep there, of course. The maids have all been sent home for a few days. The cook will be in the village, as the bakery kitchen has been kindly opened for our use.”

Simeon dragged his eyes away as Isidore closed the bedchamber door. “My mother?”

“The dowager duchess refuses to leave Revels House. She also refuses to allow her jewelry to be removed; nothing in her room has been touched.”

“I’ll stay with her, of course,” Simeon said with a sigh.

“I took the opportunity of sending all the furniture in the master bedchamber to London for refurbishing,” Honeydew said smoothly. “You and the duchess must stop here in the Dower House. It will be rather intimate quarters, I’m afraid.”

Simeon looked sharply at Honeydew, but his face was impervious.

“Set up a bed in the sitting room,” he said. “I trust you can find me something of that nature, Honeydew?”